Advances in health care have helped to dramatically increase the lifespan of patients and their quality of life through the development of more effective treatments, medication, and medical technologies. However, one of the leading causes of medical patient readmission and patient fatalities is accidental patient or caregiver non-compliance with medication administration. Many patients often forget to take their medication, take too many doses of their medication, take their medication in an incorrect interval, or take the wrong medication. Additionally, patients do not keep a log of their medication intake. Incorrect administration of medication in prescribed method can lead to serious medical complications, higher medical costs, and death. Most patients do not even keep a good medication intake log to help provide assistance in medical diagnosis. Even when patients use calendars, a caregiver, their own memory or other methods to help remind them to take a particular medication on time, there is no easy and automated way for them to verify if they are taking the correct medication or dosage. There is no easy way for a health care provider to track if their patients are taking their medication in the manner that they were prescribed. There is no easy and automated way for healthcare providers to immediately modify or cancel medication orders or for pharmaceutical manufactures to recall a medication after patient or caregivers have possession of the medication. Also, there is no easy or automated way for healthcare providers to alert patients who have taken a recalled pharmaceutical of the potential danger to the patients' lives.
Therefore it is the object of the present invention to provide a system and method for correctly administering medications and creating detailed records of administered medications to the level of the national drug code, lot number, and expiration date of each dose of medication. The present invention utilizes unique medication packages with color coded medication package housings and a unique prescription code that can be utilized to retrieve and record medication information per dose, and automatically alert patients to how and when they should administer each dose of medication. Images of the medication package are taken before and after each administration of medication. Current images are compared to previous images to ensure that doses are not missing and are administered at the correct times. Medication data per individual dose, healthcare provider administration instructions, medication administration data per administered dose, and patient information are stored on a central processor where they can be accessed by third party information systems via a communication network.